


make with the apology, genius.

by Werepirechick



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Banter, Gen, Missing Scene, Spoilers, Team as Family, Teenage Dorks, a family can be one human big sister and four turtle brothers, and their rat pop, donnie u better apologize to your big sister, they're so very good and you really should watch them, to anyone who hasn't seen the episodes yet, you literally got her fired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 05:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: Donnie still hasn't said sorry for his hand in the pizza party disaster, April is having a sincerely crappy evening, and now that her job is out of the way, the team still has a whole night to kill.Things resolve themselves accordingly.





	make with the apology, genius.

**Author's Note:**

> rottmnt? stupendous, amazing, stunning, incredible, i will never tire of it.
> 
> 2012 who? i stan only one team now.

“So now what do we do?” Mikey asks, once they’re out of sight and in the sewers.

“Well, seeing as we’ve already checked off ‘collapse a building’ on our to-do list tonight, I’m not sure what’s left. Maybe see about derailing a few subway cars?”

Raph shoots Leo a look for the comment. Leo shrugs. “Hey, I’m entitled to a little heckling. Donnie cost us the rest of our dinner and I was barely on my fifth slice.”

“Then heckle _him_ , not me,” Mikey complains.

“I don’t know what any of you are talking about,” Donnie says, making himself busy with his phone and ignoring the pointed stares at him. “That could have been anyone’s fault, and that pizza party joint had at least three visible health code violations. Given the insurance money they’ll get, whoever was responsible for that probably did them a favor.”

“And what about the people who _won’t_ get any insurance money?” a voice demands, echoing through the tunnel as a manhole cover clatters back into place.

All four brothers freeze; the three innocent ones sucking in sharp breaths.

“Oh… oh he is so dead,” Mikey whispers to Leo.

“He will be missed,” Leo laments sincerely.

“Or him fixin’ the television will be, at least,” Raph amends.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Donnie squeaks, ducking behind Raph’s bulk.

“The hell it wasn’t!” April snaps, stalking towards their cluster. Raph smartly steps out of the way without being asked, and Donnie tries to duck away again as April fingers narrowly miss the edges of his battle shell. “Donatello, get your purple and green ass over here so I can kick it! I had that job for all of _two weeks;_ do you know how hard it is to find a decent minimum wage in this economy?”

“It can’t be that difficult, and I mean minimum wage for your age group is basically a revolving door anyway, so it shouldn’t take you more than a dozen more interviews to find another-” Donnie yelps, his mask tails being tugged backwards as April’s weight on his back drags him down. “Okay! Okay I’m _sorry_ , it was all my fault, I was trying to help and I might have gotten carried away! I’m really, really sorry. Pleeeease let go of my mask now.”

April huffs, and tugs on the fabric twice more before dropping off his back. “I just wanted an apology, dork. I wouldn’t be half as pissed as I am if you’d just owned up in the first place.”

“Sorry,” Donnie mumbles again, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “I’ve just been having a bad rash of experiments lately. I wanted a win.”

“That’s actually what we were dealing with when you called,” Raph speaks up. He gives April an exasperated older sibling look. “By ‘bad rash’, he means ‘trashing half the lair with an evil, sentient microwave’. And that was just tonight’s disaster. You should’a seen what he did to the toaster yesterday.”

“I’ll admit the battlebot AI programming needs some tweaking, but I really am making progress!” Donnie defends.

“Yeah, progress in depleting us of all our kitchen appliances,” Leo scoffs. “Pop’s gonna notice sooner or later you made the popcorn machine explode, I hope you know.”

“And _I_ couldn’t make toaster Eggos this evening,” Mikey adds solemnly, putting a hand on his heart. “I just want you to know how disappointed I was; deprived of sweet, delicious, syrupy wheat products.”

“I’ll fix all of them, I swear!”

“Like you fixed Albearto?” April says dryly, raising an eyebrow.

Donnie winces appropriately. “Less murderous intent this time around, promise.”

“Ahuh. And your past success record gives me so much hope.”

All three other brothers nod and hum in agreement; all very disapproving of their technical genius’s recent trial and error projects. Donnie grumbles, “I feel highly ganged up on right now.”

“Good,” April snips, flicking his shoulder as she passes by. He whines, and she ignores him. “Stew in that until we get back, and if you treat me nicely the rest of the night, _maybe_ I’ll forgive you for this. Now come on, I have plaster and motor oil in my god damn hair and I want it _gone_.”

“So… I take it you’re stayin’ the night?” Raph asks, catching up with her in just a few steps. April’s quick gait still isn’t match for height Raph has on her (and everyone else, for that matter).

“Maybe. I still got Mayhem to feed in the morning,” April replies. “They’ll start eating right out of the fridge and pantry if I don’t get ‘em their meals on time.”

“Thought about child locks? Splinter used them to keep us out of the TV cables when we were kids.”

“You seriously think that’s gonna stop a teleporting cat-dog thing?”

“And fyi,” Leo adds, “the wires thing was just a Raph problem. He once chewed through five extension cords in a single sitting.”

“Hey! I thought we agreed that’s classified information!

“The locks were only effective up ‘til Donnie figured ‘em out anyway,” Mikey says with an amused grin. Donnie preens, but covers it with a lazy shrug.

“Literal child’s play,” he says with a proud sniff.

April shakes her head, but is smiling. The (thankfully relatively dry) sewer is filled with their chatter and footsteps, all the way back down to the subterranean home of the brothers and their parent.

 

-/-

 

April might be the person who most frequently uses the showers in the lair, if only because she has to be presentable for human socialization. The rate which they all end up in messy, dirty disasters… well. April just straight up has a shelf of spare clothes and bath accessories at this point. After the umpteenth time she had to bus home smelling like something unmentionable, April all but put her name on it.

It’s drafty in the lair, given its stone structure and wide rooms, but a bathrobe over a comfy t-shirt and track pants fixes any issue. The big, worn couch in the arcade is as comfy as ever and more than large enough for the two smallest people in the room to lounge on it. Everyone else is relegated to beanbags nearby, or is wandering between the dozens of games.

April finishes off the short braid on the right side of her head, tying it up with her elastic. It’s only slightly damp, and well moisturized, so she’s not worried about it drying too weirdly. Her left braid is being taken care of simultaneously, thanks to the dexterous fingers of Mikey.

“Movie night? We got the second projector in here still,” Raph suggests from the largest beanbag, absently playing with the fidget toy someone had left on the coffee table. He’s being careful not to pop the squishy ball, since it’s not one of his.

“I’m down,” Leo says, abandoning his latest game as Pacman bites the dust. The _Capcom vs Marvel_ looks more tempting than trying his luck at running from pixelated ghosts again.

“Sounds good to me,” Mikey agrees. Donnie hums a vague assent, poking around in the back of a game cabinet that has glitches in its opening credits.

“If I say we watch _The Shining,_ do I get to overrule everyone else’s picks?” April asks, patiently holding still for Mikey to finish with her hair. “On account of my job being toast and it being your guys’ fault.”

“The book was better,” Donnie says immediately.

“You say that about _every_ _movie,_ Don,” Leo gripes.

“Because every book _is_ better than its movie adaption.”

“Elitist.”

“Insensate.”

“I- fuck, hold on, I know that’s an insult but screw you for making me google it’s meaning.”

“April, you got veto, yeah,” Raph says, talking over his younger siblings, “but could we watch somethin’ less horrifying? I’m thinkin’ exciting, but chill. Like… I dunno, something with The Rock in it? I like that guy.”

“You mean you like his muscles ‘n’ tatts, Raph,” Mikey snickers, finishing his braid of April’s hair.

“Can’t a guy admire another guy?”

“No duh, but-”

“Oh _fuck you,”_ Leo belatedly snaps at Donnie, finally getting his phone to load its answers. Donnie’s spider arms fend off his birthday twin’s swats at him, and he scuttles away before Leo can get past them.

April rolls her eyes at every single one of her friends. “Scarf me, Mikey.”

Mikey hands over the silky fabric as requested, leaning back against his half of the couch now that his work is done. April winds the flowery patterned scarf around her head, tying it in a knot under her braids and at the base of her skull. She flops comfortably backwards after that, laying her legs on top of Mikey’s.

“If we’re going with Dwayne Johnson movies, can we watch the new _Jumanji_?” Mikey asks, tucking his arms behind his head and slouching deeper into the cushions.

“Cool by me, I like that one,” April says, nudging his thigh with her toes. Mikey theatrically shivers at their cold temperature.

“I was hoping for something a little more mentally stimulating, but if we must,” Donnie says, shoving Leo away from himself and hurrying to claim the remaining beanbag. Leo groans at his fate of having to pile up on the couch.

“Don’t be a snob just ‘cause you’re sulking still,” April scolds. “Mikey, I can’t reach ‘im. Tug his tails for me.”

Mikey laughs and grabs at Donnie’s mask; his big brother dodges by slouching dramatically into his beanbag, out of easy reach.

“God, you two are the smallest here, how are you taking up the _entire couch?”_ Leo says, grabbing their legs and lifting them both out of the way. April and Mikey shriek, making it no easy task for Leo to hassle them out of the way so he can sit down. He ends up pinned under _both_ their legs in the end, but is at least granted a spot on the couch.

“Don, if you would be so kind,” Raph prompts grandly. The family’s second eldest brother gives a thumbs up; tapping the touchscreen of his wrist keyboard and inputting a command. From somewhere in the arcade, the sound of things being knocked onto the floor is heard, and then scuttling metal legs.

“Is this robot gonna turn evil, too?” April asks, eyeing the projector on six legs race across the floor.

“I know I technically deserve it, but your continued doubt in me hurts, April. Really.”

“Don’t worry,” Leo comforts, patting April’s calf. “This one is from before he started his bad luck streak. It probably maybe hopefully won’t shoot lasers at anyone.”

“That was a lot of adverbs in one sentence, Leo.”

“It’s been a long week of things blowing up.”

Raph gets up briefly from his beanbag to reach up and tug down the projector screen attached to the ceiling. The reason it’s him and not anyone else is because A) he’s the only one who reaches the cord easily, and B) if anyone tries taking his beanbag, he’ll just sit on them. No one is willing to risk that literally hefty punishment for furniture theft.

Donnie’s insectoid-projector clambers up onto the coffee table, positioning itself to aim at the screen. Their tech support scoots forwards on his beanbag (because Leo _will_ steal it otherwise), picking up trailing wires from the machine and plugging it into a laptop that’s been left on the table. It’s one of a few dozen Donnie has spread out through the lair, and clearly a communally used item; marked by its battle scars of dents and scratches.

“You want sweaty Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson in a jungle, giving the camera smoldering looks every ten seconds?” Donnie says, selecting the video from their pirated stash of movies. “Fine. There. You’ve got sweaty Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson in a jungle, giving the camera as many unnecessary smoldering looks as possible.”

Leo rolls his eyes. “One, you say that like you don’t also enjoy his movies. Two, why are you phrasing it like that?”

“It’s for the benefit of Raph.”

“Ey, shut the fuck up. I’m allowed to have favorite actors aren’t I?”

“That’s not really what we’re poking at here.”

“It’s really not.”

“I got a shell full’a spikes, I’ll show _you_ poking.”

“ _Guys,”_ Mikey interrupts.

“ _Movie?”_ April reminds.

The three bickering siblings settle down, letting Donnie finish hooking up extra speakers to the laptop before the movie really starts. April and Mikey share an exasperated look, nudging each other’s feet in comradery against dumb siblings who can’t act their ages.

The opening credits come and go, and their chatter ebbs and flows with the humor of each scene. It’s easy to forget the earlier disasters like this, all piled into one area and laughing together. Comfortable and familiar chaos, as its come to be for the five of them. For April, the sting of losing her job (again) steadily leaves her, and by the time the characters on screen are running from giant man-eating hippos, she’s something close to content with how her night has ended.

The feeling is mutual all around.

**Author's Note:**

> they're my favorite mixed family. i cannot wait for september to get here.


End file.
